The battlefield of her womb
by hikachu
Summary: You are too small, she explains voicelessly to the baby, and you are trapped, she adds. Trapped inside me. Setsuka during her pregnancy.


**The battlefield of her womb**

**I**

The flesh of her stomach feels thicker, stretched. It's as if her belly is made of rubbery plastic, now. Like a balloon, swelling, swelling.

She wrinkles her nose and stares at it in the morning, before getting dressed. She studies it like she would study any stranger – and that's why nobody in the house ever notices her puzzlement. (Or any other significant expression crossing her features.)

The fact that the Sakurazukamori is paying attention to something is still enough to make them worry, though. What if she becomes even more unpredictable?, they wonder. And cower.

**II**

Setsuka likes beautiful things: simple things, delicate things. Like flowers and the contrast between red blood and white snow. Camellia flying down, swaying, swaying, on a frosted lake (when the shiny carps have already been dead for quite a while; pale, viscid bellies greeting the sky. She remembers them, nowadays, and they remind Setsuka of herself).

Setsuka does like the intricate decorations of an obi and elegant furisode sleeves, however. She likes the different texture of each fabric, and the way that one kimono looks like a slice of sky draped around her thin frame: with cranes flying from the hem brushing her ankles to the larger planes of its sleeves. She likes these things so much that, when it's summer, her first priority is still looking at the mirror and being satisfied; so she doesn't wear yukata or house clothes.

Setsuka believes there aren't many relevant things in this world, besides pretty clothes and flowers, anyway.

So she wears her prettiest obi even when her abdomen is large enough to hurt from its pressure.

She wears them again and again and again even after the doctor told her not to.

It's not that she doesn't understand, or that she's doing it out of spite: simply enough, this is Setsuka's life, and Setsuka likes pretty things.

**III**

She's beautiful. Most people in the household think they've never seen a prettier woman, or girl. Some say there's no prettier creature than her: male or female; human or spirit. And maybe it should be considered a bizarre thought because, truthfully, nobody really likes her.

Seasons change, the world spins madly on and people die while others come into existence, yet none of this seems to affect her. This birdlike princess who never seems to age. Did her time really stop? Did her heart really freeze and die, at some point?

Always so tiny, always so pretty. She looks like a child, rather than a woman.

And if it's true that pregnancy makes women bloom like flowers in spring, she must be an exception, because that swollen belly looks grotesque on her: it's too big and heavy and way too human to be flattering on the Sakurazukamori.

**IV**

Lately, Setsuka finds herself spacing out, losing track of the time. It happens more and more often, and it never leaves her any more than her own hand resting on her stomach and a blank space between memories and the world outside. What was she thinking? She cannot recall.

But Setsuka doesn't sigh, doesn't get angry or annoyed. She doesn't feel anything at all and there's no way that this thing feeding on her flesh and blood could ever hurt her. You are too small, she explains voicelessly to the baby, and you are trapped, she adds. Trapped inside me. And by the time she stops wearing obi that are too tight, there are bars running through the once open space of the windows. But she doesn't feel caged. Setsuka is not as powerless as the baby.

She simply smiles and sings an old song: her mind filled with old tales of mothers devouring their own children, either afraid to be abandoned or to spite a heartless lover.

Setsuka doesn't fear loneliness, however, nor has she ever loved anybody.

**V**

The fact that she hasn't yet killed the baby is what scares them the most. Morning after morning, they had expected to find it – still no more than a bundle of bloody flesh attached to her insides through the umbilical cord – dangling between her pale thighs; its half-formed head slamming against the wooden floor as she danced. _Tunk_ _tunk_ _tunk_.

And she would have laughed, loud and shrill.

Because she is the Sakurazukamori _and _a woman _and_ almost a mother. (And it's no mystery that women and mothers are the fiercest and cruelest beings on this Earth.)

**VI**

Setsuka doesn't think of it as 'her baby' or 'the baby' at all. She doesn't have a name for it because all that she feels, knows, is a presence swimming in her womb. Nothing more than that.

It doesn't count as proper company, but Setsuka knows she isn't alone anymore either – a truth she has elaborated and accepted through the weeks, rather than a reason to smile.

It moves and sometimes kicks her, the inside of her rubbery stomach, but she barely notices the pain. The kicks have been more and more frequent nowadays, so Setsuka asks: "Do you hate me?", like this: aloud; for the first time. And then she blinks at the silence that meets her question. "Say, don't you want to come out?" There's silence again, and she tells herself it doesn't matter, for the baby is too small and trapped for its opinion to count something. "But it will," she explains, "only if you are strong enough. If you are strong, then you can walk the path you've chosen for yourself, regardless of what anyone else will say." A pause. Then, laughing: "Besides, seeing their faces when you don't follow the rules is fun!" and it's the first time she's laughed so openly in a quite long time. But Setsuka doesn't realize it: for all she knows, she's always smiling or laughing.

Always.

**VI (2)**

She goes out to kill one last time, even though she really wasn't supposed to (not now, not for the next few months). It's too early to see the camellias falling on a snow-covered garden, so Setsuka figures she could work a bit longer and admire red blood on her white robes instead.

When the corpse has only just touched the ground, the splotches on her kimono are still bright and cherry red: exactly like her beloved flowers; and she giggles lightly, delighted, and then stops because her tiny prisoner has stolen her attention again. Setsuka glances briefly at the dead man laying at her feet, and then back to her belly.

"I hope you can see this," she says, "because you must decide if you want to come out or not pretty soon."

Then a drop of blood slides from the tip of her nose to her mouth: Setsuka tastes iron and chocolate and a nameless bitterness and giggles again.

**VII**

If she's really going to give birth, it will be wise to raise the baby so that it will grow up to be useful; they decide.

**VIII**

—and in the end, when the child is born, Setsuka gives him a name which speaks of starts, burning bright and cold and distant at the same time.

And as much as she finds stars pretty, maybe – just this once – she actually meant it to be a good omen for her child.


End file.
